Christians should switch to green energy deals to help tackle global warming, the Church of England bishop in charge of environmental issues has said.

The Bishop of Salisbury, the Rt Revd Nicholas Holtam, endorsed a new charity campaign called the ‘Big Church Switch’ encouraging Christians to choose renewable energy tariffs.

"If Lent is about renewing our lives in response to the love of God here is a way to follow. You can do it, and so will I."

Bishop Holtam, CofE Environment lead

The campaign, launched by Christian Aid and Tearfund on Ash Wednesday, hopes to spur "hundreds of thousands of Christians to switch energy suppliers".

Bishop Holtam said: "The Big Church Switch is a simple, practical, good idea. It supports the move to renewable energy.

"If Lent is about renewing our lives in response to the love of God here is a way to follow. You can do it, and so will I."

Households will be directed to switching site the Big Deal, which is offering a deal from energy supplier Green Star Energy with "100 per cent clean electricity".

The campaign urges households to switch energy supplier. Photo: ALAMY

In practice this means the company buys all the electricity needed to cover the household’s needs from renewable sources, such as wind and solar farms – although the electricity that actually arrives in a customer’s home may have come from any number of polluting sources.

The tariff will cost a typical household £824 a year, which a spokesman for Christian Aid said was the cheapest such green deal on the market.

Although non-green deals costing less than £800 a year are available, he said getting a good value deal was “an important, but secondary, element” of the campaign.

Its main rationale was to encourage people to "demonstrate their care for creation, tackle climate change, and show political leaders that they support faster action on renewable energy", he said.

The campaign is also backed by the Bishop of Liverpool, Paul Bayes, the Bishop of Manchester the Bishop of Guildford, Andrew Watson and the Bishop of Truro, Tim Thornton.

Christian Aid’s head of advocacy, Laura Taylor, said: "Today we’re saying to the Government: we’re switching to low carbon energy, now you must switch the country’s energy from fossil fuels to renewables."